Holdem Manager review

Holdem Manager review

Holdem Manager is a vital piece of software if you're serious about improving at online poker. It's suitable for players of all types of Holdem (there is an Omaha version as well) at all stakes of the game.

Holdem Manager (HEM) is a poker analytics suite. That means it takes all the data that's available during your play and enables to you use it to your advantage bother during and after your play. Arguably it's the definitive piece of poker software on the market. It's well designed with the poker player in mind, efficient, stable and immensely powerful.

The original version of HEM (HEM1) was awesome as it was but then they launched HEM2 which blew it away by adding a bunch more features and making the graphical interface loads better. If you already have HEM1 you can upgrade it to HEM2 from just $29.95.

Holdem Manager features

Headsup Display(HUD) - A key feature of HEM is it's HUD - this means overlaying statistical information about your opponents on the poker table you're playing on. For example their VP$IP (voluntarily put $ into pot), which defines how loose/tight they are, or their PFR (pre flop raise %), showing how aggressive pre flop they are. This means at a glance you have got an idea of the style and likely hand ranges of that opponent. The HUD can be customised to have have more or less information and detail as you see fit.You can then make appropriate decisions based on your opponent's statistics (such as when to try and blind-steal, for example).Pretty much any serious player or 'reg' you'll come across now is using a HUD. If you don't too you're missing a trick and giving THEM the edge over you!

Off-table analytics: HEM is a superb suite of reports and tools to analyse your own poker play (and that of your opponents) away from the tables. Taking every piece of data the play provides, HEM offers you every imaginable way to analyse it using a huge array of reports and filters. This enables you to spot 'leaks' in your game - but also of your opponents. You can, for example, analyse your play when dealt pocket pairs, or what hand ranges you're playing with from the cut-off. Have a look at a particular opponent's known hole cards to gain an edge on them.If you can think of anything you'd like to analyse, you can be pretty damn sure HEM offers it.

Holdem Manager price

Cost: If you're a small-stakes player (which here means up to $0.25/$0.50 NL and tournies up to $22) then it's a bargain $59.99. If you play in stakes above that it's still fantastic value at $89.99 for the 'Professional' version.

Upgrading HEM1 to HEM2: Depends when you purchased HEM1 and which version you have, pricing is from $29.95 to $100.49.